[MaupitiBlue]

Then they are only paying a small fraction of the mess they’ve created. What about the lives lost in Korea, and Italy, and Iran? Why should those countries suffer because China won’t practice basic hygiene and eats unsafe food?

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

All of these other countries, including my own, had the opportunity to see what China was dealing with and to act quickly and decisively to prevent having to suffer the same pain. Instead, we sat on our thumbs for a month trusting I don't know what, destiny? Moral superiority? To protect us. And now we will pay the price.

Nobody with any power to censure China is able to point fingers, since these politicians and leaders have failed to protect their own people at least as much as China failed to contain the virus, and with less excuse. Also, practically speaking, there is just no mechanism to enforce any kind of sanction on China for this.

[MaupitiBlue]

> All of these other countries, including my own, had the opportunity to see what China was dealing with and to act quickly and decisively to prevent ...

You’re missing my point. Why should the other countries have to keep acting to clean up China’s mess? Shouldn’t China be responsible for that?

Also, given that China concealed the full extent of the outbreak for as long as they could, I disagree that the rest of the world had a fair opportunity to deal with it.

[thatswrong0]

The first US case of coronavirus was confirmed on January 20th. That's 53 days.. it took 53 days for the president of the U.S. to officially address the issue publicly. Most other countries were complacent as well.

We have had a fair opportunity to deal with it and prepare. We knew how contagious and dangerous it was. We could have screened all people coming into the United States internationally, and we could have started creating way more tests and have been testing people at a much greater degree and tracing people's connections to figure out who is at greater risk, and maybe even considered quarantining people as a precaution for a few days. The first case confirmed in the U.S. literally was in Wuhan and came back on January 15th. But we didn't do shit, and we still haven't really done shit, because we have been complacent and have been waiting to see what happens, like most other countries.

I get in concept what you're trying to argue for, but there's really nothing we can do to punish China for the corruption that allowed the wildlife markets to exist in the deplorable state they did that initially transferred the virus. And while they probably did try to cover it up for a bit, they also probably didn't know what they were dealing with at first. And they were also trying to squash it and implemented pretty draconian measures by our standards to put a stop to it.. they had many fewer cases than the U.S. currently does before implementing them.

I mean we could issue sanctions I guess.. but you would have to think about how that would affect our economy because we are so interconnected to them via trade. At this point I don't think our economy needs even more chaos and turmoil.

[scurvy]

>We have had a fair opportunity to deal with it and prepare. We knew how contagious and dangerous it was. We could have screened all people coming into the United States internationally<

How? Keep them at the airport for two days while the test results were out? Temperature screening here proved ineffective.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

Israel is keeping incoming people at the airport for 14 days.

[scurvy]

As is New Zealand. They're both tiny countries. No way the US could have done that without closing all borders (air, sea, land).

Israel also expelled all tourists. We're dealing with very different legal systems and mindsets.

[cryptonector]

Given the difficulty we've had getting a testing program going, the only thing that could have been done here in the U.S. is to shut down international travel -- not just to affected areas, but ultimately, everywhere, for a while. We're generally very reluctant to do that sort of thing, and yet the government did shut down travel from China.

BTW, January 15 was around the time of impeachment, wasn't it. Ah yes, the articles were sent the day after. For many of the 53 days you mention, our collective attention was utterly consumed here by the trial. Everyone knew non-removal was a forgone conclusion, and that the trial was distracting. Now I wonder if it distracted from responding to covid-19.

[scurvy]

To be fair, you're right that China embargoed virus samples from leaving the country. That did put other countries at a disadvantage from creating functional test kits.

They also covered it up until the whistleblower came along.

[scurvy]

In terms of hygiene...

Don't Italy and Iran both practice a kiss greeting? A ka "la bise"?

Koreans have a rich history of sharing meals and eating from the same pot.

Could hardly call those practices hygenic. But the point is they've existed forever and probably aren't about to stop because of this.

Watch throwing stones in glass houses.

[imiric]

The difference is that those social practices don't introduce novel viruses to humans, whereas the handling of wild animals does. There are popular beliefs in China that consuming certain animal parts will bring health and well-being: tiger heart for courage, bear paw as an aphrodisiac, etc.

While unhygienic social practices are common around the world, and will cause further spreading of the disease, the mythology around food and more importantly the very unsanitary ways wild game is prepared and sold in China is what causes outbreaks of this kind.

I don't believe any sort of retribution towards China because of this is necessary, but they need to be pressured into banning these cultural customs and educating their people.